To begin ...

As the twentieth century fades out
the nineteenth begins
.......................................again
it is as if nothing happened
though those who lived it thought
that everything was happening
enough to name a world for & a time
to hold it in your hand
unlimited.......the last delusion
like the perfect mask of death

Friday, January 23, 2009

Reconfiguring Romanticism (23): Mignon's Song by Goethe

Translation from German by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Jerome Rothenberg

Know’st thou the land where the pale citrons grow,The golden fruits in darker foliage glow?Soft blows the wind that breathes from that blue sky!Still stands the myrtle and the laurel high!Know’st thou it well, that land, beloved Friend?Thither with thee, O, thither would I wend!

Know'st thou the house? The roof set on its beams,Whose rooms stream light, whose inmost chamber gleams?And marble statues steadfast stare at me!Thou my pooor child, what have men made of thee?Know'st thou it well, that house, thou surest guide?Thither with thee, O, thither would I ride!

Know’st thou the hill where clouds obscure the way, Where mules amongst its fogs wander astray! Deep in those caves the dragon guards his brood, The cliffside plunges down and then the flood! Know’st thou it well, that hill? O father, hear! Thither our way, O, thither let us steer!

N.B. Coleridge’s shot at translating the song from Goethe’s novel, The Apprenticeship of Wilhelm Mister, got as far as the initial stanza & petered out. In the process of assembling Poems for the Millennium, volume 3, I found myself enough attracted to what Coleridge had done, to try to emulate his voice over the remaining two stanzas. Our version, needless to say, is more poeticized than Goethe’s original, but the pleasure of channeling Samuel more than makes up for it – at least for me.

A PROSPECTUS

In this age of internet and blog the possibility opens of a free circulation of works (poems and poetics in the present instance) outside of any commercial or academic nexus. I will therefore be posting work of my own, both new & old, that may otherwise be difficult or impossible to access, and I will also, from time to time, post work by others who have been close to me, in the manner of a freewheeling on-line anthology or magazine. I take this to be in the tradition of autonomous publication by poets, going back to Blake and Whitman and Dickinson, among numerous others.

[For a complete checklist of previous postings through January 12, 2012, see below. The slot at the upper left can also be used for specific items or subjects. More recent posts are updated regularly here.]